“I can be there in, like, ten minutes.”
“Well, slow your ass down, ’cause I won’t be there for twenty.”
“K. See you there.”
I laugh and slap the steering wheel. The caffeine is clearly kicking in.
* * *
The place with the signs is Nina’s and my favorite little diner. It’s actually called Stu’s Diner, but that name just doesn’t do it justice. Not only are there overstuffed red leather booths and an old-school jukebox that doesn’t play anything released after 1977, but also the walls of the restaurant are covered in funny signs that the owner (not named Stu, oddly enough) has collected from across the country. If he couldn’t steal the actual sign, he would take a picture and replicate it when he got home. Over the years, customers have sent him pictures of signs for him to hang as well. You can go there twenty times in a year and always find something new to read. Oh, and they happen to have the best apple pie in three counties.
The tiny place is packed, but as I walk in I spy a free table in the corner under a sign that says:
UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE GIVEN ESPRESSO AND A FREE PUPPY.
I commandeer the corner and wave to Stephanie, the waitress on duty.
I don’t know how long she has been working here, but she reminds me of the character Flo from the old sitcom Alice. Flo was a tall thin drink of water with a head of relentlessly bright red hair done up in a bouffant. She had a sassy southern accent and was always telling her boss to “kiss my grits” as she smacked her gum. Steph doesn’t have a southern accent, but the rest rings pretty true.
“Be with you in a jif, hon!” she yells to me across the diner. Not one person lifts their head in surprise. Everybody knows Steph.
I take out my phone and check my messages. An IM from Nina saying she is “five away,” a picture from Ron showing Max doing the flexed arm hang at the store, and a text from Don asking if he can join me. I realize that he thinks I’m still at Grab a Java. I IM Nina Here, send Ron a kiss and a hug, and text Don Sorry, no. I was just giving you a coffee update, to which I get an immediate sad-face reply. When I check my email, wouldn’t you know there’s one from Kim Fancy.
* * *
To: JDixon
From: KFancy
Subject: Was that you?
Date: February 9
Hi, Jen,
Was that you driving through KCK this morning? You should have stopped. Peggy and I were just meeting for a cup of coffee at that weird little place beside the grocery store. We were discussing the spring carnival.
See you soon.
Kim
* * *
I stare at my phone. Holy shit! I can’t believe it. She slapped Miss Ward? What the hell?
Nina makes her entrance at this opportune moment. I wave enthusiastically at her. I’m practically jumping out of my chair.
“Hey, girl—” Nina starts.
“Shut up and sit down! You are not going to believe the gossip I have for you!”
“What?” Nina looks momentarily confused.
“Okay, so I’m over in KCK getting my mom some things at the organic grocery store she loves.”
“The one by Grab a Java?” Nina asks unnecessarily.
“Yes.”
“Did you stop in for a breve?”
“Neens, stop interrupting.”
“Sorry,” she grumbles. “I need coffee.”
“Anyway as I’m going into Grab a—”
“What’s up, girls?” Steph’s voice makes me jump. “Apple pie’s almost gone, if that’s what you came in for.”
“I’ll have coffee and scrambled egg whites and wheat toast, no butter,” Nina orders.
Steph nods and looks at me.
“I’ll take the pie.”
She nods again. As she is walking away, she points to the wall.
“Did ya see the new one?”
We both look at where she’s pointing. It’s a large piece of plywood with orange letters:
PLEASE DON’T THROW CIGARETTE BUTTS ON THE FLOOR. THE COCKROACHES ARE GETTING CANCER.
Nina laughs. “Nice one, Steph!”
“Came in from Tucson,” she yells from behind the counter.
Nina looks back at me. “Okay, so you went shopping…”
I lean in.
“No. I went to the organic grocery store across the river to get my mom some prunes.”
“Uh huh. Prunes.” Nina seems distracted. I see Steph coming with her coffee, so I sit back and wait.
“Here you go, honey. Pie and toast will be up in a minute.” She looks at me. “Ice cream or Cool Whip?”
“Neither, thanks.”
I turn back to Nina. She is savoring her first sip with her eyes closed.
“Oh, my God, do I need this. You won’t believe what I did last night. I—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Me first. I have to tell you what I just saw.”
“Seriously? I called you,” Nina reminds me.
I sigh in frustration.
“Okay, I’ll say mine and you say yours and we’ll decide whose is better. Me first. I saw Kim Fancy slap Miss Ward across the face!”
Nina’s eyes widen. “Oh, man, that is good.”
“What’s yours?” I ask, pretty confident that I have won.
“I had sex with Garth last night.”
I look at her evenly. “You totally win.”
Nina nods knowingly and takes a huge gulp of her coffee.
“Holy shit! How? When? Why?” I have more questions than I know what to do with.
Nina is about to answer when Steph descends upon us with eggs and toast and pie. She also puts the check down.
“More coffee, hon?” she asks.
Nina nods gratefully.
“Okay. Spill it.”
She sighs. “It was our third date.”
“Third date? He never said a word.” I’m shaking my head. It always amazes me how men can keep a secret. You ask them not to say anything, and they actually don’t. We women could learn a thing or two from that.
“We didn’t want to freak you out, so we decided to keep it on the down low for a while.”
“Okay, whatever. How did it start? Did you start his website?”
She looks at me with surprise. “You heard about that?”
I nod. “Garth mentioned it, but didn’t tell me any of this.”
“Well, we sort of connected at your Christmas dinner. I was still in my Sid funk, and he was just really nice to talk to, you know?”
I smile. I certainly do know.
Steph swoops in with a refill and is gone.
“So after that, he would call once in a while to check in, and we just started having these great phone conversations, first about his website and then about everything else. I told him all about Sid and my parents and grandmother—about how I raised Chyna by myself. He told me about being in Afghanistan—girl, he saw some serious shit over there. He told me about his breakdown at the gym and how he still goes to therapy for post-traumatic stress.”
I can’t believe my ears. How does she know more about Garth than I do?
“He told you all that?” I ask.
“Well, I asked him about it. We’ve been talking a lot.”
“Talked yourselves right into bed,” I say, with a bit too much snark.
Nina raises her beautifully arched eyebrow at me.
“Sorry. I just can’t believe I didn’t know any of this. Wait, did you have phone sex?”
Nina snorts coffee out of her nose and starts to giggle.
“No. Oh, my God, no. Only you would ask that. No, we were talking one evening and realized we had both skipped dinner, so we decided to meet at Garozzo’s. We had a great time together. Did you know he doesn’t drink alcohol or eat pasta?”
“No, but I’m not surprised. He’s in great shape.”
“I hear that!” Nina says, and I think she’s blushing. I sit back in my chair, trying to process all this new information. The tectonic plates of my wo
rld have had a true rattling this morning.
“By the time we had our second date, it felt like our twentieth,” Nina feels the need to add.
“Uh-huh. Are you trying to rationalize your sluttiness to me or to you?”
“To you.” Nina doesn’t bat an eye. “I’m all good with my sluttiness.”
“Are you charging him for your, um, services?”
“Yes!” She smirks. “But I’m giving him the special friends discount.”
My phone buzzes and I sneak a glance at it. Don has texted me an emoji of a turd drinking coffee. I turn my phone face down.
Nina’s crystal blue eyes are staring at me. “Something important?”
“Nope. So, was Chyna home?” I deftly pivot.
“No, thank God. That’s why I wanted to meet you. When did you tell the girls about Ron?”
I scoop the last of the scrumptious apple pie into my mouth and scowl. The girls’ first time meeting Ron is not one of my favorite memories.
We had been dating for about a month before I even told him I had kids. I wish I had taken a picture of the look on his face. Here he thought he was dating this hot (his word, not mine), single thirty-something who had never been married and who seemed relatively normal. After pleasuring him in the front seat of his car one night, I casually mentioned that I was harboring two small fugitives in my home. He took it relatively well. At least, he didn’t run screaming in the other direction.
It was another month before I let him meet them. Shrinks these days will tell you to wait a year, but that wisdom wasn’t available to me, so I went with my gut. (Actually, I’m sure it was available somewhere, but I’m generally lazy when it comes to researching stuff like that.)
I invited Ron to dinner one Saturday when my parents were away on a spiritual retreat or, as I like to call it, a booty call with the Lord. There was no way I was going to bombard him with two kids and Kay and Ray.
The girls knew that I had been going on dates with someone, but they also thought I was taking a pottery class at the local Our Name Is Mud. It was the only way I could get out more than twice a week. Ron and I were at that euphoric beginning of a relationship where we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and we were having a lot of car sex. When I told the girls I was going to introduce them to the man I was dating, they reacted like the polar opposites they are. Vivs rolled her eyes and said, “Well, this should be good.” Where does her sarcasm come from? Laura started jumping up and down, beyond excited, asking if he was going to be our new dad. I thought she was joking, so in my infinite wisdom I told her yes, he absolutely was, as long as they didn’t blow it for me. But guess what? She wasn’t joking, and she didn’t think I was, either.
Ron arrived promptly at six with gift bags for the girls, who were ten and twelve at the time. I could tell he was nervous, and not just because he had pit stains the size of pizzas under the arms of his gray polo shirt. He was very jittery and kept looking around the kitchen as if someone was going to jump him. I kissed him, handed him a beer, and told him to relax.
“They’re just little girls,” I assured him with as much conviction as I could muster. I really wasn’t sure how the evening was going to play out. Good thing I didn’t have high expectations, because it ended up an unmitigated disaster.
The first to appear was Laura. She was wearing her prettiest dress and had tried to put her hair in a bun, without much success.
“Sweetie, I’d like you to meet my friend Ron. Ron, this is Laura, my little one.”
“Hi, Laura. So nice to meet you.” Ron stuck out his hand for a formal greeting, which Laura bypassed in favor of a huge hug.
“Welcome to our family,” she said sincerely.
I guess I should have seen that coming.
“Thank you.” Ron looked a little confused, but to his credit he went with it. “It’s so nice to meet you, Laura. I love your hair.”
Laura looked surprised and pleased. “Really? I just did it all by myself.”
“Well, I helped,” was how Vivs announced she had arrived in the kitchen. She had chosen to wear all black, which included the expression on her face.
“Ron, this is Vivs. Vivs, this is my friend Ron.”
Ron just smiled this time, but it was Vivs who formally put her hand out. Ron shook it.
“My grandpa says you can learn a lot about a man by his handshake,” Vivs informed him. “Yours is wet.” She wiped her palm on her black pants.
“Oh. Sorry about that,” Ron mumbled.
“Vivs!” Laura frowned at her sister. “Maybe he just washed his hands.”
“Who’s hungry?” I jumped in before it all went south.
“I am!” Ron said, a little too enthusiastically. “How about you guys?” He looked toward the girls. Laura nodded like a bobblehead. Vivs ignored him and turned to me.
“What are we having?”
“Lasagna.”
She made a face like it was the worst thing I could be serving, even though it was one of her favorites. I gave her my stone-cold stare.
“Cut it out,” I said quietly.
Ron picked up the bags he had dropped by the door.
“Hey, I brought you guys something.”
He handed the girls identical lime-green gift bags tied with pink ribbon.
Laura stepped forward and took the bag shyly.
“Thank you so much. I love it.”
“You haven’t even looked at it yet.” Vivs rolled her eyes and held out her hand to take her bag from Ron.
“Thank you.”
“It’s hard to buy for people you’ve never met, so if you don’t like it you can exchange it,” he assured them. I gave him a “You’re doing great” smile.
The girls simultaneously opened their bags to find matching pink Gap sweatshirts and a large Hershey kiss. The perfect gift for Laura and the absolute last thing my newly goth devil child would want.
Laura gave an overexaggerated gasp. “Oh, pink is my favorite color! Thank you so much.” She immediately put the sweatshirt on and gave Ron another hug. Meanwhile, Vivs and I were in an evil stare-down. Her big brown eyes registered contempt, and my eyes said, “I dare you to say anything but thank you.”
I laugh when I think about it now, but at the time I was convinced that I would never see Ron again. But he showed up the next night just before dinner with a black Gap sweatshirt for Vivs. That didn’t win her over completely, but it was a glimpse into the thaw of what was certainly the brief ice age of her tween years.
I look up and see Nina waiting for an answer.
“I guess it was about two months. We had a rough start with the girls, remember? Vivs and that goth phase?”
“Oh, my God, the one she couldn’t quite commit to?” Nina and I crack up at the memory of Vivs acting all dark and dangerous until a Backstreet Boys song came on the radio. Then she would forget herself and start singing her head off. When our laughter turns to sighs, I look directly at Nina.
“Are you sure about this?”
“About what? Garth?”
“About Garth, Chyna, everything. I feel like you just got out of the Dumpster. Are you ready to jump back into something? I mean, you barely know him.”
“Are you kidding me? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had sex? I know I was hung up on Sid, but shit, no one is more ready than me.”
“Well, I’m glad for you, but I think you should wait to introduce him to Chyna.”
Nina nods and finishes her eggs.
“Now, tell me”—she licks her lips—“who bitch-slapped who?”
* * *
That evening, as I’m making Max’s favorite dinner, skillet tacos, I ponder the events of my day. As if the one-two punch of what I saw in KCK and Nina’s news wasn’t enough, I’d still had an entire day of errands to tackle. I got the minivan washed, took a load of stuff to the dry cleaners, replaced the battery in Ron’s favorite watch, talked to our local kids’ gym about Max’s sixth-birthday party next month, and spent a hal
f hour on the phone with Peetsa analyzing the Dr. Evil/Miss Ward smackdown. Her theory? That Miss Ward has been making eyes at the dashing David Fancy, and Dr. Evil was just protecting her territory. I have to say, it has some legs. If Miss Ward flirted with Ron, I’d definitely be scaring her straight with a few choice words, but physical violence? Not unless she slept with him. But in that case, I’d be saving most of my rage for Ron.
I sigh as I take a sip of cooking wine, so named because it’s the wine I drink while I’m cooking. I look at the clock and realize the boys should be home any minute. Skillet tacos are ready and Chyna is on her way over to babysit. Ron and I are going out to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It isn’t until tomorrow, but Ron likes to take me out for what he calls Scoundrel’s Night. Apparently it’s the night before Valentine’s, when men take their mistresses to dinner. He thinks it’s sexy, and who am I to argue? It’s also a lot cheaper, and you aren’t locked into one of those stupid theme menus that every restaurant seems to think is necessary on February 14.
I grab my wine and sit down at the kitchen-counter office to check my emails. Hmm … Overstock.com is having a Valentine’s Day sale. Nothing says “I love you” like discount furniture. There is a note from my mom thanking me again for the prunes, which apparently did the trick for my dad. There is an email from Laura with the itinerary for our family ski trip to Utah in March, and, to my great surprise and horror, I see an email from Asami Chang. I take a deep breath and click on it.
* * *
To: JDixon
From: AChang
Subject: A question …
Date: February 13
Hello, Jen,
When you were class mom, did you ever hear from Sasha Lewicki, aside from her out-of-office reply?
Asami
* * *
I have to laugh. I want to tell her Sasha and I are best friends and see each other every weekend. But I don’t, because I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and embrace the Asami. I’m also slightly curious about why she’s asking, so my reply is friendly and open.
* * *
To: AChang
From: JDixon
Subject: A question …
Class Mom Page 14
